by Craig Zerf
General Carson had stayed behind to control the defense of the wall. However, he had sent his 2IC, colonel Bricksmith, with the two thousand cavalry that had been dispatched to protect the northwest shores from the raiders.
Nathaniel had spent a day and a night with the colonel, firstly hand picking one hundred and eighty soldiers to accompany him across the sea to Ireland and secondly, in creating a plan to disburse the rest of the 1800 cavalry into defensive positions along the coast.
The marine was fairly confident that there were no raids planned for the immediate future and Carrig had confirmed this. However, he and the colonel had split the cavalry into ten equal groups of around two hundred each and sent them off, traveling up and down the coast from Kirkcudbright in the south, to Ardrossan in the north.
Their mission was twofold; first they were to see if there were any raiders or if any had ever struck. Then they were to provide protection and help set up a system of town and village guards. Secondly, they were to spread word and story of the king and how he had exacted vengeance for the raid on Portavaddie. For it struck Nathaniel that, although he was king and leader of the Free State, many people knew of him only by rumor or hearsay. The cavalry was there to harden the dust of rumor into the solid stone of truth.
After two days, Nathaniel, Tad, The Ten and the selected soldiers were ready to travel across the seas. Each of the ice boats were piloted by one of the survivors of Carrig’s raiding party.
Some of the raiders had refused to work for the marine and, in a show that had shocked many of them; Nathaniel had accepted their refusals and then had them put to death by the sword. Tad, who knew the marine better than anyone, saw how deeply this act of savagery effected him - but he also knew that hard times oft called for harsh measures, so he said nothing in argument.
Since then not one had answered back to him, nor his men.
Now, thirty fully laden iceboats skimmed across the packed slush of the Irish Sea, carrying with them almost two hundred of the Free State's finest warriors. They had set out at sunrise, the emerging sun frosting the ragged ice sea with a wash of pink and silver. The ever-present pulse light above scored the wash with careless steaks of random color and seagulls swooped and dove about them, seeking scraps of anything edible.
Shortly, the flotilla cruised into the mists and all around became a silver fog. Vision limited to forty yards.
Carrig took out a small brass compass and set it on the bow. The needle moved from point to point, stopping every now and then to stay on due south.
‘Does that thing work?’ Asked Tad.
Carrig nodded. ‘The pulse light effects it, but only slightly. One has to keep an eye on it and steer using a mean average. It’s not pinpoint but it will get us close enough. Once we get closer to land the mists rise and we can see where we are going once again.’
Carrig said that the trip would take eight hours. After the first few hours Nathaniel slipped into a half sleep. The continual silver gray all about him and the white noise of the hull sliding over the ice and the slush lulled him into a state of meditation and, as he sat without talking nor moving, he moved slowly through the five states from the gross level, through subtle, bliss and I-ness and into the final level known as Objectless or Asamprajnata.
Tall they stood. Perhaps eight feet high. Their bodies were enclosed in a strange armor. Chitinous. Insect-like. Their legs bent backwards at the knees and their feet were more akin to claws. Two sets of arms. One pair ending in a multi-digit taloned hand, the other pair each ended in a three-foot blade made from the same material as the armor.
They drew closer and he felt fear. He could see them more clearly now. It was not armor, it was an exoskeleton. Part of their body itself. The heads were spiked and their compound eyes flicked form side-to-side, independent of one another, scanning in all directions at once.
There were many of them. Countless numbers. Too many for him to fight. Before he could turn and run they had him, piercing him with their talons. Cutting him with their bladed appendages. His axe simply bounced off their armored skin.
He screamed in terror…
…he was somewhere else. Floating. All about him an impenetrable golden light. He was safe. The fear had left him and he realized that the fear had merely been a manifestation of itself. A forewarning. A portend.
‘The Annihilators are coming,’ it said.
‘I know,’ he answered. ‘I shall be ready when they do.’
‘Good. And I shall be here to help you.’
And Nathaniel turned his head and saw it, standing tall and proud. Its hide a blinding white. Its eyes the most crystalline blue. Its horn a blend of all the colors of the pulse-light.
Unicorn.
Tad shook The Forever Man’s shoulder.
‘Hey, boss,’ he said. His voice held low. Quiet. ‘Wake up. You dozed off. We’re almost there.’
Nathaniel looked around. The sun was low in the sky and the flotilla had emerged from the sea mists and was heading towards the shore, some six hundred yards away. As he looked about, Carrig changed tack slightly, angling the ice boat so that they were traveling almost parallel to the beach.
‘We need to get a mile or so north,’ he said. ‘As I said, our navigation is less than pinpoint accurate. Our village is fairly close though. So, king Nathaniel,’ he continued. ‘What’s the plan when we get there? It’s just that, there is every chance that, as we disembark, we may be attacked as soon as the people realize that we’re strangers. Well. That most of us are strangers.’
‘I’m going to rely on you, good Carrig,’ answered Nathaniel. ‘As soon as we beach I want you front and center, yelling out that we come in peace. Also, I want you waving this above your head for all that it’s worth.’ Nathaniel held up a spear that Tad had tied a white sheet to. ‘Then we will all stand, weapons sheathed and try our best to look non-threatening.’
‘If they do still attack?’ Enquired Carrig.
‘Make sure that they don’t,’ warned The Forever Man. ‘For if they do I shall decimate your people and leave what is left to the Desolaters.’
Carrig blanched. ‘I will do my best, sire.’
‘See that you do.’
The small flotilla beat before the wind for another twenty minutes before the village hove into view. Carrig jibed the ice boat about and the flotilla followed. Within minutes they were grinding up onto the sandy shore.
Carrig leapt off the boat and ran up onto the beach waving his white flag of truce above his head.
Nathaniel’s men also disembarked with haste and formed up in ranks behind the flag waving Irishman. The marine strode up the beach to stand next to Carrig, as did Tad.
They all stood still and waited. It didn’t take at all long before people started to appear. Firstly a mix of villagers. Wide-eyed children, bold young boys, old men and housewives. Some carried weapons of a sort but most simply carried the tools of their trades. Brooms, spades baskets and sundry items.
Not long after the crowd started to form, a detachment of soldiers marched into view. At a guess, Nathaniel put their number at three hundred or so. Riding at the head of the column, on a small but healthy looking pony, carrying a short whip, was a man that Carrig immediately pointed out as the marquees of Donegall.
The man rode his pony directly up to Nathaniel and peered down at him.
‘Where are my men?’ He demanded.
‘Dead,’ replied Nathaniel. ‘Apart from the few that you see standing in front of you.’
‘You dare to kill my men?’
‘You dare to raid my country?’ Retaliated The Forever Man.
The marquees raised his hand above his head in an obvious preplanned command and his soldiers fanned out, forming a shield wall one hundred long and three deep. The movement was carried out smoothly and with great precision. Nathaniel was impressed.
‘I am under a flag of truce,’ he pointed out to the marquees.
‘But I am not,’ retorted the Irishman.
Carrig stepped forward. ‘My lord,’ he said. ‘If I may. King Nathaniel comes to negotiate, not to fight. I strongly advise that you accept his treaty and listen to him.’
The marquee edged his pony closer to Carrig, almost touching him. ‘You advise me? You sniveling little turd. You come back here having lost and entire raidng party and then you seek to beg my forgiveness and advise me to seek treaty with this ersatz king.’ The marquees lashed out with his whip, cutting Carrig across the cheek and bringing forth a welter of bright red blood.
Carrig did not flinch. ‘My lord,’ he continued. ‘I accept responsibility for the loss of our men. However, do not attack these people. I could not bear to see the loss of more of our people. We are spread too thin as it is.’
The marquees sneered at Nathaniel. ‘We outnumber you almost two to one,’ he said. ‘I shall give you five minutes to surrender your arms.’
‘Don’t need five minutes,’ said Nathaniel. ‘Just hang fire for a few seconds while I ask Carrig something.’
The marquee nodded, confident in his superior numbers.
‘Hey, Carrig,’ called Nathaniel. ‘How would you like to be the marquees?’
Carrig shook his head. ‘Not much, sire. Happy in the position that I am.’
‘Well tough titty,’ responded the marine. ‘I’m afraid that you don’t have a choice. You’re the new marquees. Well done. All praise and so on.’
‘You can’t simply make him a marquees, you stupid idiot,’ blustered the man on the pony.
‘Just have,’ said Nathaniel.
‘I take it that this charade means that you offer your surrender?’
‘Yes,’ agreed The Forever Man. ‘But not to you. I surrender myself and my troops to Carrig Faolan O’Niall, the true marquees of Donegall.’ Nathaniel turned to his warriors, held his hand high and bellowed out. ‘All hail, Carrig Faolan O’Niall, the true marquees of Donegall.’
As one his men shouted back. ‘All hail marquess Carrig of Donegall.’
Nathaniel glanced over to take a look at the Irishmen lined up in a shield wall along the top of the beach and he could see sighs of confusion and bemusement. He walked over to Carrig and knelt before him.
‘Carrig O’Niall,’ he shouted out. ‘I, marine master sergeant Nathaniel Hogan, also known as king Arnthor of the Picts, leader of the Free State of Scotland and The Forever Man, do put myself and my warriors under your command. All hail, true marquees of Donegall.’
And then The Forever Man stood up, pulled in the Earth power around him and unleashed a fireball of massive proportions into the sky. It crackled upwards until it looked like another sun in the sky. Then it exploded with the sound of a thousand fireworks. Pieces of flaming plasma fizzed through the air as they fell to the ground, setting alight trees and grass as they touched down.
The ex-marquees’ pony reared up in terror, throwing its rider to the ground and bolting.
Carrig made a decision, strode over and picked the ex-marquees up by his shirtfront, snatching his whip from his hand as he did so. ‘Now listen to me, you pompous turd,’ he snarled. ‘Believe me when I tell you that attacking these men would result in our annihilation. That is no aspersion to our bravery or competence, they are simply better soldiers than us and they have The Forever Man with them. I am sorry, I didn’t want to be made the marquess but you left no other choice. You idiot.’
Then Carrig turned to face the massed Irish troops. ‘Hear me,’ he shouted. ‘These men come in peace. They come under a flag of truce to parley and not to do battle. The ex-marquess has dishonored them and us by ignoring the flag of truce.’ Carrig pointed at two men standing in the van of the shield wall. ‘You, Scott and you, Travis. The ex-marquees is under arrest. Put him in chains and place him in the town jail. He shall be dealt with in due course.’
The two men hesitated, not sure whom to listen to but Carrig trucked no hesitation. ‘Come on,’ he shouted. ‘Move it.’
Scott and Travis jogged forward and grabbed an arm each, bodily dragging the protesting former leader away.
Nathaniel approached Carrig and praised him. ‘Well done.'
‘I feel like a traitor,’ responded the Irishman.
The marine shook his head. ‘No. The old marquees was not the right man for the job. He inspired cruelty in his men, as was apparent in the Portavaddie raid. He ignored a flag of truce, he accused his own men of cowardice before bothering to hear out the fact and, last but definitely not least, your soldiers took the first excuse given them to rebel against him. You are no traitor – you are the new leader.’
Carrig shrugged. ‘So, my king, what do you suggest the new leader of the Irish does now?’
‘I suggest that we find a place to encamp my men. We have our own rations and tents, we simply need a level patch of open ground near water. Then you and I can talk.’
Carrig nodded. ‘It shall be done.’
Chapter 14
‘The rumors are spreading,’ said Seth. ‘Of that, there is no doubt.’
‘The problem is,’ added Ammon. ‘If we strenuously deny the existence of The Free State it will only strengthen the humans need to seek the truth.’
The rest of the council of twelve sat without talking. The commander and the chief mage had summoned them and, as custom dictated, they would only talk or advise when called upon to do so.
‘As we know,’ continued Ammon. ‘The humans are malleable to a certain point. As long as we continue to be perceived as their only hope for continued existence, if not prosperity, then we can control them. But this Free State furnishes them with hope. Hope that they can survive on their own, without our leadership and guiding hand. Without our rules and laws. And it goes without saying that we have found the human to be a very truculent being if he is given room to think. Even now there has been a spate of recent sabotage that has severely weakened our economy. Nothing that we cannot recover from but still very irksome. I am less than pleased.
Also, I have received a very succinct repot on the Free State from Orc sergeant Kob who penetrated their defenses and spent a fortnight behind the wall, cataloging the human behavior that he observed there.’
There was a slight frisson in the air at the mention of Orc sergeant Kob’s name. Ammon picked it up but said nothing. He knew that the Fair-Folk were worried about this strange Orc that thought for himself and was capable of carrying out missions that involved both subtlety and invention. But he also knew that Kob was a one-off. An aberration. As such he did not merit worry. After all, Ammon observed, it was not as if they were suddenly going to become swamped with proactive, ambitious Orcs. The entire concept was ludicrous.
‘According to sergeant Kob the humans are thriving. Crime is non-existent, food supplies are plentiful and they appear to be happy and content. As well as this, their military power is growing. Not to a stage where they would be a significant threat to us, but still, they could be a bother. Things need to be done, good folk, and, as such, I have convened this meeting. Ideas please.’
A mage called Agathocles stood up. He was the senior mage in charge of the mines and the manufacture of the birthing eggs and vats for the battle Orcs.
‘Commander,’ he said. ‘I feel compelled to point out that, with the protracted use that we have made of human labor over the past two decades, we have come to rely on them. Our production of the Constructs who used to do our menial tasks has all but ceased. After all, we have found that a sufficiently motivated human is capable of doing three to four times the work of a Construct.’
'Your point being, Agathocles?’ Asked Ammon.
‘My point, commander, is that, without human labor it would take us up to ten years or more to replenish our stocks of Constructs to replace current human input. My point is that we cannot afford to lose human input. They have become…necessary to our continued existence.’
Ammon glanced at Seth for confirmation.
The chief mage nodded. ‘What Agathocles says is correct, commander,’ he concurred. ‘The
humans farm our crops, catch our fish, weave our clothes and convert their old buildings to suit us. They carry our messages, clean our dwellings and, generally, assist in almost every aspect of our lives and our comfort.’
‘So what does the council suggest?’ Asked the commander.
‘We advise a complete change in our human governing practices. We need a serious clamp down.’
‘Some would say that we have clamped down enough and that is part of the problem,’ argued Ammon.
‘No,’ disagreed Seth. ‘We have discussed the problem and feel that we have, perhaps, been approaching it all from the wrong angle. At the moment we subjugate through laws that result, on the whole, in either corporal or capital punishment of some sort. That can be either physical punishment or ostracization or both. But we are still using our laws to bend the human will to our way of thinking. Instead, we need to start changing the way that they, the humans, actually think.’
‘A bold statement, senior mage,’ countered Ammon. ‘How?’
‘Separate development together,’ stated Seth. ‘We need to control their schooling, rewrite their history and their lessons, favoring our intervention more.
We already limit Orc and goblin interaction with the humans but we must become even stricter with that. However, we temper it by giving them “Free Areas”. Areas that are solely human, except, of course, for a few necessary Orc guards.
We allow them some free trade amongst each other. Trade unrestricted by our quotas but in very limited amounts.
We elevate the current Worthy Humans to an even higher state, showing what magnanimous leaders we are. Perhaps we institute a Worthy Human day, declare a public holiday of feasting to replace some of their current festival days.
You see, we need to give them the feeling of freedom whilst, at the same time, subjugating them utterly. Those who already consider themselves free will have no reason to search for a mythical Free State.’
Ammon nodded his approval. ‘As I said before, Seth, bold. But it makes sense. I approve. Put together a formal proposal so that we might start on this sweeping plan of yours. Now, lastly, before we go. Good council members, I need you to bend your minds to another problem. After sergeant Kob’s report one fact has become painfully aware to me. That fact is that the human Free State is being held together, in the main, by a single human. One who goes by the name of Nathaniel Hogan. He is an ex military sergeant that has assumed the role of leader of the Free State. There are rumors that he is the self same human that released such devastating magikal forces against us during the battle of Hadrian’s Wall a couple of years back. Personally I am not sure about that. Senior mage Seth Hil Nu is more convinced that our magikal opponent is an old lady that lives with a tribe of gypsies. Be that as it may, we need to think of a way to nullify this leader. Something that will not involve full-scale war. Something subtle. Think about it, good folk. Report to Seth. That is all.’